Lois Lowry

Lois Lowry was born in Honolulu. Her father was a US Army dentist, and the family moved often, to New York, Pennsylvania and Japan. She went to Pembroke College at Brown University, left in 1956 to marry a naval officer, and raised four children. She finished a degree in English at the University of Southern Maine in 1972 and worked as a freelance writer and photographer.

Her first novel, A Summer to Die (1977), drew on the death of her older sister from cancer. She has since written more than 45 books for children and young adults. Number the Stars (1989), about a Danish family that helps Jews escape to Sweden, won the Newbery Medal.

The Giver (1993) won her a second Newbery. It describes a community that has removed pain, choice and even color, and keeps all memory in one person, the Receiver. Twelve-year-old Jonas takes on the role and learns what the community gave up. Three later novels made it the Giver Quartet. The book is taught in many schools and was one of the most frequently challenged books in the United States in the 1990s.